Lover, come back to me

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Lover, Come Back to Me is a pop song written by Sigmund Romberg (music) and Oscar Hammerstein (text) and published in 1928. David Ewen ( All the Years of American Popular Music ) called Lover, Come Back to Me one of Romberg's most cherished melodies. The song also became a popular jazz standard from the 1930s .

background

Romberg and Hammerstein wrote the song Lover, Come Back to Me for the operetta The New Moon , which premiered on September 19, 1928 at New York's Imperial Theater. The song was presented by Evelyn Herbert. The New Moon was not only Romberg's last operetta, but also the last great American operetta in the European tradition. The song, written in E major in the form AABA , follows the operetta tradition; the middle section was based on Tchaikovsky's Great Sonata in G major (Op. 37a, 1878). The song has a broad melody with long notes and a large range (an octave and a fourth ). Other popular songs from New Moon , in addition to Lover, Come Back to Me, were Marianne , Stout-Hearted Men , Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise and One Kiss .

First recordings and later cover versions

Victor Arden and Phil Ohman

Lover Come Back to Me was successfully represented three times in the US Hiparades in 1929, by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra (# 3, with Jack Fulton , vocals), Arden-Ohman Orchestra (# 6, with The Revelers ) and Rudy Vallée and His Connecticut Yankees (# 9). Other musicians who covered the song from April 1929 included Annette Hanshaw (Columbia), Arthur Schutt , The Dorsey Brothers Orchestra , Seger Ellis (Okeh), the California Ramblers (Edison), Lee Sims (Brunswick), in Paris Ray Ventura (Odeon) and Sam Wooding ( Pathé ), in Berlin Theo Mackeben . Lover Come Back to Me came in the following years in the version of Perry Askam (1930, # 20) and Nat King Cole (1953, with Billy May and His Orchestra, # 16) in the American pop charts.

In the following years the song was u. a. through recordings by Andy Kirk (1937), Mildred Bailey (1938), the Quintette du Hot Club de France (1938), Artie Shaw , Benny Goodman (1939) and Ella Fitzgerald (1940) to a popular jazz standard, albeit in the medium to fast Tempo presented. “In addition to its melody, jazz musicians appreciate the chord progressions of Lover, Come Back to Me , which often serve as the basis for improvisations; an example is Art Blakeys Quicksilver . "

The discographer Tom Lord lists a total of 616 (as of 2015) cover versions in the field of jazz , of which the recordings by Mildred Bailey , Lester Young , Roy Eldridge (1946), Ralph Burns (1955), Jimmy Smith , Hampton Hawes (1956), Sun Ra , Ben Webster (1957), John Coltrane (1958) and Arnett Cobb (1960) deserve special mention. Using found Lover Come Back to Me also uin several feature films; Grace Moore , Lawrence Tibbett , Roland Young and Adolphe Menjou sang it in the first version of New Moon (1930, directed by Jack Conway ), Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in the second version in 1940 (directed by Robert Z. Leonard ). Tony Martin and Joan Weldon interpreted him in the Romberg biopic Deep in My Heart (1954, directed by Stanley Donen ).

Web links

  • Inclusion in the catalog of the German National Library: DNB 1007829257

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ A b c Marvin E. Paymer, Don E. Post: Sentimental Journey: Intimate Portraits of America's Great Popular Songs . 1999, p. 133 f.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Information at Jazz standards.com
  3. ↑ a b c Tom Lord: Jazz discography (online)
  4. ↑ Released as the B-side of the Arden-Ohman Orchestra's recording of Lover Come Back to Me
  5. ↑ Published on the B-side of the recording of Lover Come Back to Me by Perry Askam